Vigil held in downtown Oakland for Arizona shooting victims
on January 13, 2011
On Wednesday evening, nearly 100 people held candles and listened to speakers at a vigil in downtown Oakland for Arizona congresswoman Gabrielle Giffords and the other victims of Saturday’s shooting. Twenty people were shot and six killed when gunman Jared Lee Loughner allegedly opened fire on Giffords and the group of people who had gathered to meet with her outside a grocery store in Tuscon. Giffords survived the shooting, despite a gunshot wound to the head. She remains in the hospital in critical condition.
Congresswoman Barbara Lee, who represents most of the East Bay, addressed the crowd early in the night, emphasizing that the vigil was for all the victims of Saturday’s shooting, “whether they had a title or not.” Lee’s voice caught slightly when she asked the crowd to pray for Giffords, her colleague in the House of Representatives, whom she referred to as “Gabby.”
Jamie Tschida, 31, listened carefully to the vigil’s speakers as her white candle burned down slowly. Tschida said she came to the vigil in part because of the Arizona shooting and in part because she had been a friend of Joe Olivares Hernandez, the UCSF medical student who died after an attack at a San Francisco nightclub in the wee hours of Sunday morning. “I wanted to do something to take a public stand against violence,” she said.
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Nice to see people of all backgrounds come together to take a stand against violence although under sad circumstances. Let’s all hope the best for Representative Giffords and always remember those who have lost their lives.